Curry family lost two homes in Jan. 12 tornado but dreams of keeping ties to Selma

Tom Curry lost two homes in the tornado that hit Selma on Jan. 12, 2023.  

The home Tom and his wife Ann had lived in on Parkway Drive since the early 1970s was destroyed by the Jan. 12 tornado. So was the house Tom grew up in on Leroy Street. His brother lived in that house.  

The 135 mph winds tore the roofs off both homes, but by the grace of God, no one died or was seriously hurt.  

John Curry, one of Tom and Ann’s sons, said it best in a documentary being produced by the Curry’s son, Alfonso. “Our roots have been uprooted,” John said. 

The elderly couple moved in with a son in Montgomery after the tornado, and they recently moved into a new home there, according to Alfonso Curry, owner of Southtown Media Productions in Atlanta, who hopes to get the documentary he’s making picked up by network television to be broadcast nationally. 

But Alfonso said the family hopes to maintain a connection with Selma.  

The Curry family has deep roots in Selma. Tom was raised in Selma. The Jane Deloris Curry Learning Center at Selma’s Clark Elementary School is named after Tom’s sister. After he graduated from Selma High School, Tom Curry joined the Air Force and saw the world. He left the service as a chief master sergeant, the Air Force’s highest enlisted rank, at Hickam Field in Hawaii.  

Tom Curry made another trip for his country in February when Congresswoman Terri Sewell asked him to be her guest at the State of the Union speech in Washington. In the documentary created by Alfonso, Sewell says she was honored to have Curry in Washington “to represent everyone in Selma and Dallas County who can’t be here today” as she asked for additional federal assistance for their hometown. Ann Curry, a retired teacher and counselor,wasn’t up to making the trip.  

Shaking hands in the polished corridors of Washington was a stark contrast to what Tom and Ann Curry survived on Jan. 12. “We heard the tornado coming,” Tom Curry said in his son’s video. “We had not heard that sound before.” Curry said his wife headed to her safe place in the house, and he was on the way when the tornado struck the house. He couldn’t get to Ann from where he was, but a neighbor got to her first by entering through a collapsed outside wall.  

The documentary shows the roofless house in ruins. It also shows a brother lovingly holding Curry’s muddy dress uniform, which was blown out of the closet and unceremoniously deposited in a neighbor’s yard.   

“We’re trying to figure out what do next there,” Alfonso Curry said of Selma. “We want to have something there to show how much we care about the place.”  

The family also is discussing building a bed and breakfast on the now-cleared lot on Parkway Drive, perhaps asolar home or a “net zero” energy efficient home. Construction could be part of a jobs program that “puts hammers in kids’ hands instead of weapons,” Alfonso said.  

“We’re reimaging what Selma should be and can be.”